AMD Catalyst 8.5 For Linux

[Firebar]

Hi everyone. Sorry if this has been mentioned before, but I've got an issue with these drivers and hopefully someone can solve it for me

I have an HDMI monitor with an ATI 2900Pro on RHEL5. Drivers installed fine and seem to work ok (haven't done an openGL tests), apart from the fact that they are underscaling (15% - so everything is fuzzy and in a window on the monitor). In windows I can use the CCC Display Manager to underscale back to 0% - which puts the display back to native unadulterated 1920x1200. In the Linux CCC it doesn't give me this option, and it appears that 'aticonfig' doesn't either.

Any ideas? Other than going back to 8.4 (which I hear dont have this issue)...

Thanks.

[bridgman]

I don't know the exact numbers, but AFAIK the kernel module is maybe 10-20% of the driver. The rest runs in user mode.

I'm told that we do sometimes find different sets of kernel patches and hence different kernel behaviour between distros, although most of the differences are in the userland portions.

[Tahmi]

I just tried latest driver on my old box with radeon9600 for fun.. to see
how ati is doing these days.

This is 8.40.4
http://bmx.daemon.sh/maps/linked/ati_old.jpg

And this is catalyst 8.5
http://bmx.daemon.sh/maps/linked/ati_new.jpg

Framerate counter speaks for itself (being bad on 8.40.4 already). Also note a texture glitch in 8.5

I find it amazing when such a big company with millions buiseness can have a highly incompetent developer team. For a long time now i consider ati video
cards broken and not working hardware, for reasons being obvious.

And what is this talk about distros?.. You are pretending to write a linux kernel module, which is only one, check out kernel.org sometimes.

[mtippett]

What i wish for it is to simply work for the upstream code. If distributions modify, that is for them to deal with, but I as an advanced user cannot use "support redhat/suse" at all, i dont use these distributions, what i can however use, is the knowledge that specific code will work, its then up to ME to make sure that software is actually like that, and not modified, and indeed _I_ will take care of this.

As mentioned previously our model is to *support* [1] a set of distributions. Until upstream becomes part of those distributions we will try, but will not guarantee that we have reasonably compatibility with emerging technologies upstream. Fortunately the release tempo of Ubuntu keeps their development version (which I use) reasonably close to upstream.

As John mentions elsewhere, the OSS effort is to provide a solution for those who want to travel on the bleeding edge.

[1] Support in this context is that we will proactively apply engineering effort to resolve problems on these systems.

Regards,

Matthew

[bridgman]

What i wish for it is to simply work for the upstream code. If distributions modify, that is for them to deal with, but I as an advanced user cannot use "support redhat/suse" at all, i dont use these distributions, what i can however use, is the knowledge that specific code will work, its then up to ME to make sure that software is actually like that, and not modified, and indeed _I_ will take care of this.

If you want it to simply work with the upstream code, and have distributions take care of the rest, then you really should be using and supporting the open source drivers. That's what they're there for.

The fglrx driver is aimed at major, already released distributions and *not* at the bleeding edge, although I do expect that over time we will be able to fly a bit closer to the upstream and to have the installer/packager deal intelligently with more of the distro-to-distro differences. It's really the same problem in both cases -- how many different distros and versions can the installer understand and deal with ?

The open source drivers *are* intended to work with the upstream, and in fact are part of the upstream. They don't have a fancy installer because their primary purpose is to give the distros something they can easily integrate into their products, since all of the source code and individual changes are available. Going forward, we hope that they will also be used to implement framework enhancements and help the upstream to keep... um... streaming .

[PGHammer]

Agreed (which is why I hate distro-specific tweaks)

What i wish for it is to simply work for the upstream code. If distributions modify, that is for them to deal with, but I as an advanced user cannot use "support redhat/suse" at all, i dont use these distributions, what i can however use, is the knowledge that specific code will work, its then up to ME to make sure that software is actually like that, and not modified, and indeed _I_ will take care of this.

It's distribution-specific tweaks that give Linux users (not to mention developers) heartburn. While Redhat (and Fedora) require one set of changes post-install, SuSE and openSuSE require a different (but fortunately smaller) post-install tweak (it's a known issue since 10.2; 10.3 and the pre-11.0 builds currently being tested still have not fixed it yet). However, it's still different from Fedora/RH, not to mention Debian-based builds and Gentoo (let alone Damn Small or YellowDog).

[Redeeman]

What i wish for it is to simply work for the upstream code. If distributions modify, that is for them to deal with, but I as an advanced user cannot use "support redhat/suse" at all, i dont use these distributions, what i can however use, is the knowledge that specific code will work, its then up to ME to make sure that software is actually like that, and not modified, and indeed _I_ will take care of this.

[PGHammer]

Add openSuSE

I agree that a lot of the small market share distributions are tweaks on other distributions, but the leading distributions are all different in small user-invisible, but software-visible ways.



Yes, they replace the entire 3D architecture (in an incompatible way for the non NV drivers). There are quite a lot of NV users who try ATI after installing the NV drivers and then complain that ATI doesn't work. Realistically as DRI2 and other changes come in, we will approach that invasiveness, but with an increased consistency.
I guess you are somewhat missing my point.



As per our release notes we support Red Hat, Novell, Ubuntu and Red Flag.


Regards,

Matthew

Matthew, you can also add SuSE (including openSuSE 10.3 and 11.0 through RC1) to the Known Working distribution list (10.2 was already known to work). While 11.0 hasn't been released yet (and thus is not officially supported as a build target), as long as you have the proper tools and kernel-source (which you should if you remembered to add the base-development package via YaST [on installation] or YOU [post-install]), you can build a 10.3-style RPM which your pre-11.0 openSuSE will still install (which is exactly what I did). This was after repeatedly beating my head against a wall trying to get *any* sort of 3D working using open-source drivers included with this distribution of openSuSE (and with both open-source and these same Catalysts with Ubuntu 8.04). It's nice to have *something* work for a change the Right Way.

The original page (based on openSuSE 10.2 x64, but works with the IA32 flavors as well) can be found here: http://blog.linuxoss.com/2007/04/20/...-installation/

Now I get to really have some fun!

[PGHammer]

Ubuntu fails; openSuSE works?

There may not be a HD 3450, but the point was that there are different variants of lots of cards (the 3650 comes in PCIe and AGP, the 2400 comes in PCIe, AGP and PCI). (Visit some of the AIB sites to see the AGP ranges.



I agree that a lot of the small market share distributions are tweaks on other distributions, but the leading distributions are all different in small user-invisible, but software-visible ways.



Yes, they replace the entire 3D architecture (in an incompatible way for the non NV drivers). There are quite a lot of NV users who try ATI after installing the NV drivers and then complain that ATI doesn't work. Realistically as DRI2 and other changes come in, we will approach that invasiveness, but with an increased consistency.
I guess you are somewhat missing my point.



As per our release notes we support Red Hat, Novell, Ubuntu and Red Flag.

Outside that we have general coverage, but we do not claim support. X version and kernel versions are a poor guide. Just with Ubuntu Intrepid, there is 74,000 lines of patches against the git release of code. That makes X for Ubuntu different in subtle and potentially fatal ways between the patches to Red Hat. Same for the kernel, and other parts of the system.

Regards,

Matthew

That smarts!

However, the 8.5 Catalysts *do* create suitable packages under *at least* openSuSE 10.2/10.3/11.0 (for the first time *ever*, I have my X1650 PRO AGP doing proper 3D in Linux; in this case, under openSuSE 11.0 RC1, after repeated failures with the open-source radeonhd drivers in the same distro, and the ati, radeonhd, and these same proprietary drivers in Ubuntu 8.04). I used the same HOWTO that was written for earlier ATI Linux Catalysts for 10.2 and modified it (instead of building directly against 11.0, which, naturally, isn't supported, I built a 10.3-style RPM, but based on 11.0RC1's kernel-source).

The HOWTO is here:

http://blog.linuxoss.com/2007/04/20/opensuse-102-amdati-drivers-installation/

By the by, the hardware is an ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe (Intel 875P AGPset), P4 2.6C, ATI-branded (but sold by VisionTek) Radeon X1650 PRO AGP 512 MB. Now I gets to have some fun.....

[mtippett]

i dont believe there even exists pci or agp 3450.

There may not be a HD 3450, but the point was that there are different variants of lots of cards (the 3650 comes in PCIe and AGP, the 2400 comes in PCIe, AGP and PCI). (Visit some of the AIB sites to see the AGP ranges.

and almost all of these distributions are simply a "respin" of the major dists, but with changed background image, this does not count in my eyes as "another distribution", or at the very least, not in the eyes of fglrx.

I agree that a lot of the small market share distributions are tweaks on other distributions, but the leading distributions are all different in small user-invisible, but software-visible ways.

About nvidia, yes, i agree that their drivers are extremely far from bug free, they are in fact what i'd call quite crappy, but with them, i know i get the same treatment whether i go fedora, suse, debian, or gentoo, and this is something i have put to test many times.

Yes, they replace the entire 3D architecture (in an incompatible way for the non NV drivers). There are quite a lot of NV users who try ATI after installing the NV drivers and then complain that ATI doesn't work. Realistically as DRI2 and other changes come in, we will approach that invasiveness, but with an increased consistency.
I guess you are somewhat missing my point.

The thing i have a hard time accepting, is that "this does not work on distro gah", this to me is useless, if you instead can provide me with information such as "this driver will work with X versions blalblaba, provided you have kernel versions lalalala, with hardware tralalall", then thats fine.

As per our release notes we support Red Hat, Novell, Ubuntu and Red Flag.

Outside that we have general coverage, but we do not claim support. X version and kernel versions are a poor guide. Just with Ubuntu Intrepid, there is 74,000 lines of patches against the git release of code. That makes X for Ubuntu different in subtle and potentially fatal ways between the patches to Red Hat. Same for the kernel, and other parts of the system.

Regards,

Matthew